Recently, I have been a bit of a Negative Nancy. Even through my attempts to stay mindful, I doubt my own abilities, both physically and mentally. It’s been making it difficult to handle simple situations. I always think I’m going to make the wrong decision, people are going to get annoyed or upset with me, I can’t do certain things, I don’t follow through even on the things that I can do, and so on.
I wish I could say that I was tackling all those negative things spinning in my head. If I’m being honest, I don’t think they’ll ever fully go away. I’ve had problems with depression since middle school and who knows how long for my anxiety. I can tackle those thoughts if I want, but it will be a never-ending battle.
I’m willing to fight that battle, but I’m going to take it slow and be more strategic. I have already been doing this by practicing being mindful, doing yoga at higher intensities, and running for fun. Some of the things I’ve been doing for myself, I used to think weren’t possible for me.
When running was required in gym, I believed I would never be a runner. I knew I could sprint, but running any longer than a minute felt awful. I started reading about health benefits of running, both physical and mental, and decided I wanted in on it, despite my previous beliefs. So I started running in place. I bumped up my intervals until I was running in place for 3 minutes with a 30 second pause before repeating two more times. Then I found a short street nearby and ran between mailboxes and driveways. Eventually I could run down an entire side with no problem. I’m still not a great runner, but I can do it. And the focus on the fact that I can has distract from some of the negative thoughts.
I’m taking literally the idea that you should focus on your strengths to get through times of struggle. The literal, physical sense of strength is what is helping the mental sense. The more I feel what my body can do, despite what my mind says it can’t, the more I am able to let the negative things my mind says about my self pass. I took a literal small step and when I look back during a good day, I can see miles of progress.
Mantra: I’ve got all the potential in the world
Mindfulish Butterfly 